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How old is too old to play bass?


Twanger

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5 hours ago, CameronJ said:

I’m 26 and started playing at 19, which at the time I thought was too old as I’d missed the “sweetspot” for starting to learn an instrument. Truth is, that’s nonsense - any earlier and I just wouldn’t have had the discipline or attention span to learn an instrument. So here I am, fully intending to still be playing at a ripe old age.

Enjoy every year and every minute!

My excellent teacher (younger than my children!) often says he prefers working with older students - that we have stronger motivation, and more discipline and patience, than his younger students. Several of his students are in their 70's.

Aside: I don't think "patience" is the right word here. It takes patience to do something you don't enjoy. If you can't enjoy the most basic bass practice - if you can't actually get a buzz from going through those scales and finger exercises yet again, knowing that you're strengthening your fingers and your foundations - hopefully with a bass that feels like re-attaching a lost body part every time you pick it up - you're missing something important and joyful.

Perhaps that's a silver lining to the cloud of lost time. Impossible to take it for granted, or to get tired of it.

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Has anyone mentioned it depends on what you mean by playing. Bedroom Player, 1 gig a month player, reheasal only player, gigging 3-4 times a week. Pub gigs , corporate/ function gigs.

 

That's going to vary from one guy to another. There are some guys in their 60s- 70s that are in no condition to do any serious gigging and there are some that can play multiple gigs per week with energy to spare.

Blue

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16 hours ago, Maude said:

I don't think that matters Blue. If you are able to, in whatever capacity, and want to,  then do it. There is no too old for anything, if fit and willing. 

Good point,

There really isn't a too old issue. However there could be a in poor health issue.

Blue

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I might only be a stripling at 53, but I'll be doing my 10th and 11th gigs of the month this weekend. Just to reiterate what's been said earlier, as far as live work's concerned if you're enjoying it and can get the gigs, there's no reason to stop. I have obsessed about lightweight gear, though, and now I have a full gigging rig for any size of venue that weighs less than 50lbs, and a couple of basses around the 7.5lb mark for when I'm feeling tired, and just can't face either of the other two, which are about 8.5lbs. :D

Even better is the IEM/DI route: that's fantastic at the end of the night... :D

 

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I'm 65, just picked up the bass again after twenty+ years away just playing those funny little 6 string thingies. So I'm building myself a new 4 string at the moment. I figure I've got as long as I've got to play and record at home and with friends. If I live to be 90 and didn't take it up again that would be a possible 25 years of extra enjoyment missed out on.

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Did a charity do last night and one of the volunteer players was an old mate from the sixties.

He is seventy five this year (older than me!) but is still tearing it up on tenor as he proved last night.

He also teaches part time in a shcool up in darkest Lincolnshire and has cut down for 2018 from 3 days a week to one.

But he said he was already getting bored sitting at home and planning on upping that next term. YAY! for him.

We did the Peter Gunn Theme and Yakkety Sax last night as his 2 feature numbers and he really hasnt lost a thing.

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